Sunday, 12 July 2015

Ash vs Evil Dead – Comic-Con Trailer Analysis

Ash is back, baby! The trailer for the ten-part
horror/comedy series from Starz premiered at Comic-Con 2015 and it's whipped up
a bit of a fan frenzy – so let's dig into some of the highlights.

Boy Done Good:

So where's Ash gone since we last saw him? Not very far, it
seems – if anything he's gone in reverse – living in a trailer hitched to the
same car he's always had (just think of the time and money Ash must have
spent restoring it after the events of the third film!), and now he's not
even working at S-Mart. Now he has – so I presume – slid down the retail ladder
to 'Value Stop' where he's still a Stockboy, re-living past glories as
he tells his co-worker Pablo of his prior adventures: “I was the only one to
escape, but now the evil has found me.” At least he's got himself a new
prosthetic hand – a bit more fitting to 21st Century life than that
bulky steel contraption from the last movie … maybe whatever magic that made it
function wore off? “You won't see that hand, but that's all I'll say,” teased
Raimi in response to a fan question on the matter of Ash's substitute hand at
the Comic-Con Panel.

“Ash, even in his prime, would be the wrong guy to save the
world – now he's thirty years older and he has to save the world! I'm really
worried for the world,” said Campbell of Ash's advancing years. “Crabby old man
Ash.” Sam Raimi also noted some of Ash's continued (but loveable)
foibles: that the character is “a heel, a coward, and a blow hard” but is also
“a great monster hunter”. Still though, while he may be a bit down-at-heel (he's
even revealed to be wearing dentures at one point – but could this just be a
little joke only for the trailer?), Ash still knows how to wield a
stump-mounted chainsaw – a moment in the trailer that pushed all the right
buttons!

Click “READ MORE” below to continue this trailer
analysis with more screenshots...

Quip-Smart:

Tonally-speaking, Ash vs Evil Dead seems to be
picking up where Army of Darkness left off, with Ash as a mixture of a
bumbling braggart and an arse-kicking quip machine. We find an older – but not
necessarily wiser – Ash strapping himself in, but not to a chainsaw/shotgun
brace, rather a man size girdle. “Looking good, looking sweet!” gurns
Ash, brandishing his sizzling posterior towards the mirror – suffice it to say,
you can always count on Bruce Campbell to give you a giggle.

Going by the trailer, it appears that Raimi/Tapert/Cambell
& Co have found the sweet spot when addressing Ash/Bruce's maturity since
we last saw him. “The first thing I gotta do is see a guy about a book.
There must be some spell I can say to undo all this. The other first thing I
gotta do, is some cardio, 'cos my heart is jack-hammering like a quarterback on
prom night.” They're embracing the fact that Ash is a little creakier than
he used to be, but he's still as young at heart as he ever was – not to mention
ready, willing, and able to blow away some deadite scum with his boom stick.

Indeed, Ash unleashes a few choice words: “Let's tango, bitch!”
and “Yo Granny, let's go!” being a couple of my favourites, along with
this: “I'm not a grief counsellor, but if it's any consolation you're kinda
like a young me – deadites ruined your life and you're hot as hell”, which
sums up Ash's lack of self-awareness / abundance of self-confidence. The moment where Kelly tells Ash that a recently deceased (read ex-deadite)
couple were Jewish – cheekily skewering Ash's fondness for crafting an
impromptu crucifix after many of his kills – suggests a playful tone that'll
send up the formula as much as indulge it.

Gooey & Gory:

The banned and censored 'video nasty' grue of yesteryear is,
thankfully, the gore-gushing crowd-pleasing splatter of today, and Ash vs
Evil Dead – by the looks of things so far – is chock-full-o-blood. The
broken bottle scene combines that Evil Dead II style of comedy and
horror, with Ash relentlessly stabbing a deadite beastie in the back seat of
his 'classic' (the temperamental car that all Evil Dead fans wish
they could call their own). Gloopy, sloppy, squishy practical blood seems
to be the order of the day here: “that's primarily what we do” said Raimi of
the use practical gore – after all, what kind of Evil Dead outing would
it be without lashings of the crimson stuff? Apparently Campbell, who spoke of
a “blood mortar” during the Comic-Con panel, was literally choking on the gore
in that scene – it's good to know that, true to the franchise, Sam Raimi is
still making Bruce Campbell suffer for our entertainment!

But that's not all, from hands stabbed with scissors (a
moment that reminded me of Ryan Haysom's neo-giallo short film Yellow)
to undead heads exploding at the business end of Ash's boom stick, fans are set
for a real treat. Furthermore, again appearing to pick up where Army of Darkness
left off, the deadites themselves look just like you remembered them … mostly,
anyway … because we'll also be getting to see some new monsters, such as one
particularly toothy monstrosity.

Now, obviously, CGI is part and parcel of
filmmaking these days, and there is evidently some use of it dotted around in
addition to erasing wires and blood tubes – a little extra blood splatter, or
rather amusingly, a toy fairy doll attacking Ash.

Along For The Ride:

Ash won't be tackling the deadite menace alone, of course,
so joining him and the aforementioned Pablo Simon Bolivar (Ray Santiago) there will be - among others - fellow co-worker Kelly Maxwell (Dana DeLorenzo), gun toting Amanda Fisher (Jill Marie Jones), and – sure to make fans tremble with glee – Lucy Lawless as
the mysterious Ruby Knowby (franchise fans will be familiar with that
particular surname), whose smirk, self-confidence, and deadite-slaying
abilities line her up as the perfect match for Ash. “She's got a bloody,
thirty-year-old chip on her shoulder and she's gunning for Ash because she
thinks that he's the source of the deadite plague and she's absolutely right,
and she is going to obliterate him,” said Lawless about her character. I can't
wait to see these two go toe-to-toe, and considering Lucy Lawless has been a
part of the Raimi/Tapert/Campbell brigade for many a year now (she also
married Tapert in 1998), I think she'll strike the tone with precision and
give us all a lethal lady who'll easily command our support. As Sam Raimi
described them, they're “very cool, would-be, nearly heroic team-mates” as part
of the same monster fighting gang.

As for a 21st Century Ash, Campbell considered
“How does he talk to other people? How does he consider himself? Does he lie a
lot? Yeah, he kinda does,” going on to quip “Will he be a romantic lothario?
Yeah, maybe a little bit.” Might we see some sparks between Ash and Ruby?

Crash Zoom Crazy:

One of the strongest elements of the Evil Dead
franchise – particularly in the case of the first film – was Sam Raimi's unique
visual presentation, so it's good to see that Ash vs Evil Dead will be
taking a Raimi's eye view of proceedings: crash zooms, tilted angles, snappy
editing (AoD editor Bob Murawksi returns), and the
infamous 'evil force' perspective – seen weaving its way through a
blood-drenched forest in the trailer. Sam Raimi co-wrote the series with his
brother Ivan (and a team of staff writers) and directed the first
episode – so the style template will be set firmly in-place.

So, all said and done – and as a rabid Evil Dead fan
– colour me very happy. Indeed, judging from the Comic-Con panel discussion, it's
good to see that the folks behind the show recognise – quite clearly – what the
fans want. They recognise what's “mandatory” as Bruce Campbell put it: things
like the boom stick, the trash talk, and the chainsaw where a hand should be. Other familiar names returning include Robert G. Tapert (executive producer) and Joseph LoDuca (series music). The show runner is Craig DiGregorio (Chuck, Reaper).

About Me

I am a British freelance filmmaker, as well as a writer, movie fanatic, and zombie obsessive. I am the author of "Dug Deep" and the "Celebrityville" series of books, and write for Sleaze Fiend Magazine and Homepage of the Dead.
Of the many filmmakers who influence me, some are: Romero, Raimi, Carpenter, Cameron, Fincher, Tarantino, Rodriguez, Kubrick, Boyle, Zombie, Martino, Fulci, Argento, Cronenberg, Marshall, Smith, Nolan, Dominik, Scott, Mann, Hooper, De Palma, Leone, Spielberg and Zemeckis.